a feeling, undefined
by Rupzydaisy
Summary: Bathsheba knows she may never be able to put this feeling into words, yet she is grateful to have learnt it's existence. And for all of fates' high tides, she is content enough to have found a place to weather its storms.


a feeling, undefined

Bathsheba sits before her dressing table and stares at the woman on the other side of the mirror glass. The candle she had brought up with her to provide some meagre light had whittled down into a stump and then finally extinguished itself to leave her in the dark. Her hands lay flat on the cool surface, fingers cold but not frozen, although they ache a little from stiffness when she moves to resume unbraiding her hair.

I am a widow.

It rings in her head, once more. The same low, soft voice. It had called to her once before, years and years ago when the flames threatened to burn the farm down entirely.

You could lose everything tonight, it had told her then, and now it seemed she truly had.

Your husband is lost, and he may never return. All your wishing has rotted out, what will you wish for now?

Bathsheba eventually half-tugs the neatly pinned curls away from each other and loosens her black dress enough to slip out of it. After what feels like an eternity, she is able to step out of the widow's weeds and fall onto the soft sheets on her bed. Her fingers reach out into the dark to slip over the empty space. She feels her lungs choke and her shoulders tighten from the echo of the blow; the loss that would continue to haunt her despite its emptiness.

* * *

She throws herself into her work in an effort to keep the feeling of loss at bay. The farm needs her, and her workers need her, if she was ever going to mitigate the damage her husband had done; it's reason enough to get out of bed in the mornings.

Oh, you were a fool to think he would be able to love this patch of land as much as you, the little voice says softly and Bathsheba shuts her eyes against it, her heart still bleeding sluggishly despite knowing that if Francis were here, he would still be drinking and gambling pound after pound away until there was nothing left but cruel words and empty grain stores.

Her heart aches for him, her guilt twines itself tighter in her chest. Occasionally, she lies awake through the night lamenting poor, dead Fanny Robbin, her perhaps drowned husband, and the hollowed-out woman she has become. Her bed is wide enough for it all.

But when the lightening of the sky begins, she heaves herself out of bed, continuing to wake before dawn, and pulls her boots on before the rest of the house begins to stir just as she had promised all those years before. And if, while her boots were on the fields, her workers queries were about lambs and grain and tools, then those were things she could concern herself with. Their wavering smiles and encouraging words come easier after a few days, although their condolences and apologies linger, and she learns to accept them for what they are.

The hot sun burns the back of her neck, distracting her from the blisters forming on her palms and she raises the shovel higher with shaky, leaden arms before bringing it down hard on the earth, claiming back what she was owed, inch by inch.

It draws her away from the long days of grief, and the long nights of mourning something that existed between them, and then again not quite.

After each strenuous day, she lingers to watch the farmhands count and weigh the harvest. It's not enough to balance the books and she's had to turn down honest requests from three good men looking for work already, but she clings grimly to the hope that she would at least be able to pay the ones already in her employ.

Each golden burnished sunset offers her the chance to walk into the dark, away from the eyes that watch her all day long. There is a kind of scrutiny here, but it's not as malicious as she had feared. Her workers still have enough confidence in her, even if they gossip among themselves about whether she would remarry, or if she would take to her bed after another week. It's easy to assuage those rumours, and the nervousness falls away with each long day spent out in the fields, but with her lantern in hand and the grass turning damp while the orange glow of the sky leeches into navy and then black, Bathsheba enjoys the stillness the night brings.

Liddy offered once to accompany her, on one of the first nights after the news broke, but Bathsheba told her not to worry and strides off into the darkness, following in her own footsteps. As she walked, she reminded herself of little things and relieved small, bittersweet moments. There she stumbled right into Francis and their lives messily entangled together, and further over was the clearing where she had recklessly gone to meet him and heard the first of his sweet words and the first of his lies.

When she sits down on the grass and turns the wick of her lamp low enough to see the stars above her, she swears to herself that it'll never happen again, she'll never allow herself to make this mistake of loving a man again.

* * *

When Bathsheba steps back into the market hall with the next harvest, she fixes her eyes higher than she thinks she needs and holds her breath knowing there would be a respectful silence to greet her, along with a new yardstick she would have to mark herself against.

I will fight for this, as I always have, she tells the small voice inside her head.

The feeling of wading through water returns, an ever-constant companion since she had heard the fateful words in the very same spot, which had then become anvil-weighted around her dreams of living a happily married life with a man who loved her.

A few hats tip in her direction. A few sympathetic smiles linger around the room, more than expected. And there are watchful eyes on her as she positions herself behind her usual table and smiles back with an even coolness, even when her traitorous legs threaten to buckle under her.

Heads turn, and turn back, and out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees the glint of the constable's silver buttons and instantly feels the swoop of dread fill her stomach again.

She pushes it away, turns to the closest face she could call a friend and asks, "Ah, good morning Mr Stairbourne. I have a fair price on the most golden of wheat you'll see in all of Dorset. Would you care to take a look for yourself?"

"Mrs Troy, I think that would be most agreeable." The old man says as he shuffles closer to take the proffered sack. "Shall we say ten shillings?"

A moment of silence encapsulates her and the prickle on her neck returns, along with the feeling of a dozen eyes watching.

"I shall sell for fourteen shillings, and not a penny less."

The old man hums and haws for a short while, and then concedes, "It's good wheat, I'll give you that. Aye, fourteen shillings."

Bathsheba takes the proffered hand, seals the deal and steps back on legs as sturdy as oaks. "I'm glad to hear that."

* * *

Bathsheba goes to Boldwood's party because she knows she must, because he has been a good friend and a good neighbour, and it's to be expected from a woman of her standing. She knows not to be childish and hide away on her farm in the face of an awkward question, but his proposal of marriage was just that. True, she did not love him, but she did wonder if he was right in saying that it didn't matter.

Would it ever matter though, to him or to her, if the farm was looked after and thriving? Could you share everything, even a bed with a man, you would never love.

Her guilt spurs her on to speak about her thoughts with Liddy in passing, which were naturally to be kept between the two of them, and her friend had only insinuated that the farmhands and the town assumed that she would accept the awaiting proposal and that the farms would be fully merged together. Bathsheba had listened carefully feeling the metallic taste under her tongue grow and wondered, what if they're right? Five years, six years. Seven years- will it even matter?

The voice whispers on and on, and her knees feel weak each time she thinks of it, the sluggish, sloshing feeling returns. Each step forwards in the same tenuous line of thought feels like wading further into the freezing waters that claimed her husband. And time passes on, the days grow longer and colder and Boldwood asks after her answer. His presence haunted her even after Bathsheba makes her excuses and asks for longer to consider the matter.

But it all falls away when Gabriel takes her hand to waltz. Despite her wishing to leave the celebrations early and knowing that he could have left but decided to stay a little longer, she doesn't think it's a hardship for either of them to turn to the music amongst the other couples in the decorated hall.

Her boots squeak against the floor and she takes a moment to appreciate Gabriel's fine sense of dress having become so accustomed to his worn-out jacket and mud splattered leather leggings. It is a strange sight to see, but not unwelcome. If his star had continued to rise all those year ago when they first met, perhaps, he would have become accustomed to this image earlier. But underneath the finery, she could see he was the same man as ever. The silver chain of his pocket watch peeks out from his waistcoat, and her lips twitch up in a smile as she remembers catching sight of him spooling it out to check the time against the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock in the far corner of the hall a few hours ago.

With her hand in his, and the other resting on her back, Bathsheba finally feels like there's was ground beneath her feet. There is a form to her, underneath the thick fabric of her dress, and his warm touch reminds her again that she is not something to crumble away in the face of grief.

The music drifts in and out of her attention, and she smiles because the two of them would rather be anywhere else, she in her study working through the books and he off in the fields somewhere. He smiles back, unaware of her amusement or knowing that just his company had helped to make things bearable and allowed her to forget she needed to provide an answer to Boldwood, if only for a moment.

* * *

Liddy sits with her the night of the funeral, refusing to leave and refusing to be pushed out no matter how many times Bathsheba asked and ordered her away, even when her trembling voice rose to an awful wail that had the other women lingering in the corridor scurrying away. She can barely remember driving up to Boldwood's farm, or passing under the holly boughs lining the hall, only Francis' anger and then the sudden flood of her horror.

Eventually the fight drains out of her, and she slumps down on the floor beside her bed. The very thought of her husband lying in a coffin in the hall downstairs, just as Fanny Robinson had so many months ago with her small baby clutched in her lifeless embrace has her shoulders shaking uncontrollably again. Her stomach churns, her head feels as though all her thoughts have been thrashed out, and her legs are boneless, all she can do is sit there.

"You must think me awfully unlucky, or even terribly cursed, to be widowed twice over," says Bathsheba once Liddy lit all the candles and the fresh logs in the fireplace.

It was an odd thing to say, and the small laugh that fell out of her mouth not even seconds later had Liddy gasping in absolute horror. Bathsheba finds enough of her wits to cover it with her still trembling fingers, but the clarity of her words doesn't leave her. It only settles, like a film of dirty oil on water and keeps her cool, even whole the flames on the log fire catch and burn brighter.

Yet while they clamp over her lips, her eyes fill with hot tears and flood over, and then her resolve to stop crying crumbles like dried bark and her tears are shed once more onto her thick skirts. She sees Francis collapse over and over again, sees Boldwood's turning around and handing the gun off to the other men before walking away to hand himself in, feels the ground give way under her feet again until her knees and ankles are cold and there's dirt and gravel pressed into her palms.

"Oh, I don't think it works like that." Liddy darts forward and drops to her knees beside her to offer some comfort.

"Don't lie to me." Bathsheba spits back, in between racking gulps of air.

"I know that much, Mrs Troy." Liddy's voice grows a little sterner than can be expected for a girl so young. It makes Bathsheba look up from her damp skirt and wipe at her face

"How can you be sure?"

"Mr Troy made his choices, made his mistakes, and so did Mr Boldwood. But you still have this farm and although you wouldn't think it now, you'd make-"

Bathsheba raises her hand to cover her face, unable to make sense of the words. "Don't- just don't. Liddy."

So Liddy doesn't say anything more, but she stays until Bathsheba falls asleep with a tear stained face and her hands fisted in the blanket that Liddy manages to drag over to the carpet to cover her.

* * *

Time passes on. Hazy, the months peel away from her. Gabriel becomes her right-hand man, taking her place at markets she can't bear to face. She hardly sees him, but the little scraps of paper that fly between them are perfunctory lines of communication that flutter in the wind. They fall quiet after he sends through his notice to leave and suddenly ...

America, is so awfully far away, the little voice reminds her, as though she hadn't a clue, or had never seen a map before in her life.

But she had, and she knew it took weeks to cross over the vast sea, almost as boundless as the sky. To think of it in the first place was such a strange thing, because in her mind she knew she'd never be able to leave Weatherbury, let alone Wessex. It would be as though she would be stepping off solid land and then floating off into nothingness right at the invisible border.

Although it wasn't as though the rest of the world didn't exist. Bathsheba knew there were lands a plenty and a hundred thousand people living in a hundred thousand towns she'd never see with her own eyes. And America truly was a land of opportunity with good prospects for a hardworking farmer like Gabriel Oak.

She just never thought that he would leave. Not when he knew how much she needed his help on the farm. In her mind, he was as solid as the ground underneath her feet. More than that, she had always thought in two, three, or even five years' time she would turn and look out to the far fields, and still see him tending to his flock there.

He had grown on her, despite all her best intentions and his inattention, having kept to his word to not ask again after his first rejection, when he knocked on her aunt's door and was almost sent off thinking she had a dozen suitors vying for her hand. An unassuming shepherd, blushing madly while promising her hens and a piano and a ten-pound gig, and to love her more than she could ever love him for the rest of her life.

Bathsheba had once thought that she needed to be tamed by a man, when all along there was one who was willing to understand her. Their partnership had flourished after she allowed him to become her businessman, and continued to grow from there. Over time she had come to respect his counsel, sought out his opinion, and trusted him innately.

Well, I already have the hens, and a piano, and a ten-pound gig, she tells herself.

It's not until Gabriel's departure turns imminent that she realises what she must do. Her heart stutters, afflicted by a pang of regret that resounds in her bones before she realises that regret was only ever borne out of mistakes made in the past. And then it brings to her a resolve that she never thought she would have, and her feet are already walking down the path to his home.

* * *

Almost three years pass and Bathsheba's entire life has turned upside down. Where there was sorrow, there is now a brightness she dares to believe in more and more. She is no more a shade of herself, eclipsed by grief or diminished by another man.

She smiles to herself when she hears the talk in town of how the colour has returned to her cheeks and how her formidably has grown to mark her out as a fine farmer woman. But it is not the smile of a vain woman in front of her vanity pleased to hear her renown, or the smile of a young child playing with a mirror while trundling slog a country path in a rickety cart. It is the smile of a woman who had lost it for a time and now found it returned, a thing to handle delicately but wear as often as possible.

Her clever bookkeeping continues, her farm prospers, and she does the Everdene name proud. Her uncle, for all his quirks, had been proved right and Francis Troy's abuse of the farm's accounts and his memory had been left behind in the past like a shadow growing short at noon under the sun's golden light until it had been swallowed completely.

As spring sends its first daffodil heralds and the green crocus shoots break ground, Bathsheba bustles through the ground floor rooms, from the dining hall to the parlour, and then back to the kitchens issuing instructions to the usual staff and keeping close watch on the hired hands. The house is abuzz with activity and her excitement swirls in with that of the general atmosphere that threatens to bubble over before the wedding celebrations begin.

Gabriel catches her on her way out from the dining hall where she was overseeing the preparations for the wedding breakfast. In his hand is a fistful of thyme which he holds out to her, taking hold of her other free hand with his calloused palm as she accepts the bunch.

She breathes in deeply, her smile returned to her lips once more as she lets the thick herby perfume take over her senses. "Thyme?"

"It's for you, for tomorrow. For your flowers." His cheeks turn red as he explains, but thankfully it doesn't spread as far as his ears.

It takes a moment for her to understand, and then her eyes light up, but Bathsheba continues the pretence. "I don't think many women add thyme to their bouquets, Gabriel."

It's a strange enough thought to marry again, and the wedding preparations had taken up enough of her time and Weatherbury's attention for some time. Every time she went into the town, she was asked what sort of dress she would wear and what kind of celebrations the farm would organise. Adding thyme to her bouquet would only encourage the gossips, but she found little worry about it with Gabriel's warm hand around hers.

A smile breaks across his lips, first humorous and then melting into the warmer, honest look that fills his entire face, which she had grown all too accustomed to over the past few months. "Maybe not. I have heard that only the fair and tender girls care for pretty flowers, roses and violets and whatnot. It's the Bathsheba's of this world who sing of thyme picked and lost, and she should have some to hold in her hand on her wedding day."

"Thank you."

They linger in the hall, moving over to the window to watch the afternoon sun soak the green fields in their golden rays. The weather had only just begun to turn warmer, and both of them were full of optimism for the planting. Bathsheba counts out the swallows darting across the far field and rests her cheek against his shoulder. The stems of thyme in her hand grow warm and each small movement sends little wafts into the air around them. When he speaks again, she tips her head back to watch his smile widen again, tapering at the ends with another attempt at teasing her.

"Before Liddy appears to fulfil her solemn duty as your maid and chase me off... I thought I would also ask if you've given any thought to what you might say tomorrow?"

"Which is?"

"About whether you'd take this man, to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Her brow furrows in mock annoyance before she catches herself. A wild thought flies through her head to remind her of the true value of second chances and how she had managed to catch her own golden fate tight within her grasp, never to be squandered lightly again. Though it was not likely, not with Gabriel who made his promises and remained steadfast in keeping them.

"I have indeed, Mr Gabriel Oak, and after thrice asking, I have my reply for you." Bathsheba leaned up on her toes to whisper in his ear, "I do. I do!"

* * *

"What is it, darling?

She waves him over, not trusting her voice until he takes his seat beside her. "I have been written to, by Mr Boldwood."

Gabriel stiffens but doesn't turn and shout as Francis would have, and for that she's relieved, but he still asks with a furrowed brow, "What does he say?"

"That he wants to sell the farm to me. To us. That we take over the running of the entire estate and use it to make both farms as successful as possible."

Her eyes dart back to the paper and she smooths of the faint creases where it had been folded into the envelope, but not for long enough for it to be deeply marked. Liddy had shown in the courier who had raced straight from the solicitor's office in Weatherbury. The boy had been herded into the kitchen, and she hadn't paid much notice to his sheepish manner.

"He sends his congratulations too. For us. On hearing that we've wed." Bathsheba adds, feeling once more the twinge of guilt she had first felt when opening the letter and seeing the signature of a man who had spent the past three years in jail behind the same bars, and would spend every minute up until his death there.

Gabriel gives a perfunctory nod, shuffles closer on the seat and leans over her shoulder to read Boldwood's short letter; full of regret about his actions and wanting to make amends.

"Although I may forever regret not having the honour of being your husband and fulfilling my promise of giving to you a comfortable and joyful life, I have kept my word in protecting you from harm and do trust that Mr Gabriel Oak will carry out this honourable duty. He has performed admirably as trustee of the estate, and the board are willing to accept my recommendation that he full take mastery over the land. This along with my steadfast belief in your future successes are why I believe you both are the foremost choice. My solicitor will have enclosed the required paperwork if you wish to accept."

Gabriel reads the rest of it in silence, his face reddening, and then falls back into his pensive silence.

"What do you say?" She asks, watching his eyes narrow in consideration, mulling over the words.

He is her husband, yet Boldwood came close to calling himself that. She had spoken to Gabriel on the matter when she pushed him to tell her the truth; in how he had seen rooms full of new dresses and furniture intended for her before she had even given Boldwood her answer. Boldwood had planned everything, fully prepared to give her a full and happy life. Wealth, comfort, trinkets and treasures. Any ordinary man or woman would rightly refuse this new and unsolicited offer, for exactly those reasons. It was a tangling of guilt ridden wishes and wants, and Bathsheba was unsure if her husband would see Boldwood's offer as tainted, bringing the presence of a familiar and unwelcome shadow to loom over their futures with each planting and harvest on their bestowed land.

Yet Gabriel surprises her by telling her that he needed time to think it over, so she nods and lets him go.

Or perhaps it shouldn't have surprised Bathsheba at all that he took the Sunday afternoon off and walked out onto the back field. It was in his nature to consult himself at length until he was sure. She does her best to put it out of her mind, at least until he returns and she can hear his answer. The rest of her day is spent in her study, with the books and accounting for sacks of grain over winter and considering how much she would need to hold back in the coming autumn. When she does hear from young, freckly Jim that evening at dinner about how he had seen Farmer Oak sitting by the wall to the sheep enclosure for the whole afternoon, looking out onto the land beyond their farm, onto Boldwood's, she feels neither relieved nor burdened.

Gabriel comes back later that evening once the sky is pitch black, damp with dew and his cheeks ruddy red from the night wind blowing across the hills. He only moves beside the fire to warm up, tipping his head at her, and at Liddy who excuses herself from keeping Bathsheba company. Bathsheba lets her go with a tight smile and then hovers around the room to inspect the paintings on the wall, stepping lightly while feigning nonchalance.

"I suppose I shouldn't make you wait for my answer." He says, after a short while of watching her act.

He pats the space on the bench beside him and reaches out a fire-warmed hand to take hers, and then suggests, "We should buy Boldwood's farm, if he's willing to sell to you."

"To us. He wants to sell to us." Bathsheba corrects absently, shifting slightly to look her husband in the eye and measure any sort of hot and violent emotion bubbling up inside.

She sees none, only Gabriel's solid composure.

He knows better than to chuckle at her confusion so moves straight to explaining, "To us. Because it would be a waste to let that good farming land go to someone else. I know, you know it, and he knows it too. But only if you're sure you want this, Bathsheba. It's a big endeavour-"

He pauses for a moment, censoring himself before speaking again, "And you must promise me one thing, that is not to do this out of guilt for the man. It'd be a poor reason to start things off from, in my opinion."

She thinks about it long and hard while he sits beside her, long past the time Maryann locks the front door and Liddy snuffs out all the lights in the house. She thinks on how far she's come since she arrived at the farm. She thinks on all the troubles she's faced as a woman taking on the running of it, and all the troubles her wild heart has struggled with.

Fate had set its challenges to her over the last few years and she had stumbled and struggled. At times she had thought she would drown in her despair and grief, or regret; this whirlwind of emotions that would have endangered any woman in her shoes to the points paralysis and ruin.

She knows that she is not the same woman now. Still wilful and uncowed, but less immature having suffered losses beyond those of her childhood, which have only given her a strength as time marches on. Her feelings were Boldwood were mixed with guilt and regret, she had found it hard to extract herself from them. Yet as the years passed and her sensibilities matured, Bathsheba found she could forgive herself a little more for her youthful and wilful actions by seeing them for what they were and using that understanding to never repeat them.

Now, she thinks, she is a far greater match for life's challenges.

As she sits in the dining room beside Gabriel, her heart swells with pride and accomplishment, and love. And there is something else in the mix too, akin to a peace she hadn't experienced with Francis or Boldwood, or anyone else before. Bathsheba knows she may never be able to put this feeling into words, yet she is grateful to have learnt its existence. And for all of fates' high tides, she is content enough to have found a place to weather its storms.

Finally, she draws herself up to her full height beside her husband having made her decision. "You and I have started from smaller things, and taken on bigger challenges. We will have to do the same here, Gabriel."

"I'll follow your lead, Farmer Oak." Gabriel says as she lets out a long exhale and tucks herself into her chest. Then she begins to think aloud, rattling off a list of things that would need to be done once the papers were signed.

* * *

Bathsheba turns, half asleep, and the sheets are colder and folded over on the other side of the bed. When her hand reaches out further, she finds him gone. With bleary eyes, she raises her head and turns towards the sound of the fire crackling and the bright, golden glow emanating from the fireplace.

"Ah, there you are."

She smiles sleepily at Gabriel who adds a final fresh log onto the pile and retreats back to the bed bringing the warmth of the fire back with him on his hands and arms.

"Here I am."

"Just as you said."

Her legs tangle up with his, cold toes pressed against warmer calves and shins in a valiant effort against the nipping frost spreading on the outside of the windows around the house, having already taken the fields and the grounds into its glittering grasp. Bathsheba slings an arm over him and feels his cheek brush up against her loose, tangled hair.

Gabriel mumbles into it, "Always."

* * *

She watches Cainy run back and forth from the pile of scrap wood in the barn, unloading the wheelbarrow each time and then speeding off with the rattling empty one. Her annoyance rises up, and irrationally she wants to call him over and assign the lad some other duty. But she swallows it down and gets on with overseeing the cleaning of the sheep, dark eyes watching each sopping mass of wool and bundle of bleating kicking up onto the riverbank.

The week passes on, all the sheep are let into the next meadow, and then the mowing begins. After that the planting finishes, and she is longing to see the golden wheat shiver in the breeze and ripple like molten metal under cloudless skies of the brightest blue. The housekeeping continues on, the barn is swept out and the floor scrubbed. Each stone pillar has a bucket of water thrown on, and then is attached with brushes by the women in her employ. Temperance has a particular soberness about her as she helps lead the charge on Boldwood's estate under Maryann's watchful eye.

When the ivy is pulled from the main house at her farm, the spider-webbed, cracked patterns it leaves behind irk Bathsheba in a way she hadn't expected. She huffs at the sight throughout the afternoon, in between watching Cainy help mend the fences separating the ewes with lambs and those about to give birth, and those without.

Before the sun sets, she turns on her heel and stalks back into the house, not caring if Liddy has seen her go. It's only when she takes a seat at the dining table opposite her husband that the thoughts slot into place, and she feels unmoored looking at his oblivious face. But they eat in silence and she drinks her glass of wine, dabs the corner of her mouth after desert, and then pushes her chair back ready to leave the room.

Finally he speaks, "Ah Bathsheba, will you not tell me what's wrong?"

Bathsheba pauses there with her hand on the back of her chair. Her fingers slip over the varnished wood, and slot in between the carvings to grip a little tighter than someone without a care in the world would hold.

"Wrong? Nothing is wrong," she says with a shake of her head.

"There is something wrong. Liddy had been scurrying around you like a mouse avoiding the cat, for fear you may swipe at her with another brisk word."

"What did she say?"

It was asked far too bluntly to be a true question. Gabriel watches how she turns back to face him with a stern look at the thought of her companion telling all and sundry about her more private thoughts. He pushes his chair away but doesn't stand, approaching the topic slowly, wanting to unburden her without worsening her mood.

"She said nothing to me. 'Twas Henery, and some of the other farm hands. And Cainy says you've been watching him with the squeaky wheelbarrow."

"I have not!" She interjects quickly before regaining her composure once more, "And I would have thought you knew better, or were busier than to listen to gossip."

"Gossip has never been my chosen past time." Gabriel says after regarding her for a long, quiet moment in which the ticking of the grandfather clock sounds louder. "I shall fix the squeaky wheelbarrow in the morning, so as not to distract you any further."

"Yes, see that you do." Bathsheba hovers for a second, not knowing what to do next and her shoulders remain weighed down by her heavy thoughts. "I saw how you're finished with the new shepherd hut."

"We'll be ready for the rest of the lambing when it starts." Gabriel's eyes light up despite his tiredness with the comforting knowledge that the whole task would run smoother not having to run down to the malster's with six lambs hanging off his back and in his arms to beg use of his fire.

Bathsheba turns her head towards the windows to study the velvet curtains intently, so he rose up to stand beside her and ask, "What has been troubling you?

"You." She sighs loudly, eyes travelling across the hall to see if there were any shadows in the corridor. "You, staying out in the field all night for however many days it may be, until all of the ewes have lambed, weeks even-"

"And not here, with you." He finishes off her words.

To her horror, his brow wrinkles up, and then his nose did too, and finally his cheeks joined them, and his lips split into a smile he made no attempt to smother when she turned her cool haughtiness towards him.

"I'm glad to see it pleases you."

"Pleases me? No, you're wrong sweetheart. It doesn't." He rests his hands on her shoulders and pulls her closer to him, until there's nothing else she can do but look at him.

"Don't mock me."

"I'm not." He rests his chin on the top of her head and sighs heavily. "Cainy has been working hard to take care of the new lambs. And he made me promise to teach him how to tell the time by the heavens, day and night. I'll have to disappoint him if we're not to use the new shepherd's hut."

Her eyes crease up at the corners in confusion. "What?"

"But...he'll be excited to hear that we'll be moving the ewes here, into the hall."

"I don't understand. Here? Why?"

"Well, if my wife can't bear me to be away for the lambing, then we must bring the lambing to her own hearth. Still, it's only for this year while the lad learns the ropes. After that, the hut is all his to use and keep watch over the flock."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous." Bathsheba scoffs loudly at him. "If I can't tell you how I feel then what am I supposed to do? I see it, you are mocking me, Gabriel. I don't appreciate it."

"I am not!" Gabriel replies, leaning back with her still in his embrace. "If the lady of this farm decides, so must it be. I shan't be the one to argue with her, will you? Aye, but you are bold, and perhaps may be able to sway her mind."

"Fine, fine! Go to your shepherd's hut." She brushes him off and resigns herself to an empty bed, but he draws her closer again and presses small kisses across her face.

"It shan't be forever." He says as he sees her fallen face. "I'll bring you a lamb."

Her eyes widen, incredulous at the thought.

"A lamb? Gabriel Oak, what do you take me for? A young girl with nothing better to do but sit and mind a young lamb."

"Perhaps not a lamb. I'll think of something, my darling." He hastens to correct himself, but not without noticing the small smile that had crept onto his wife's face. "I'll miss you more than you'll miss me because while you'll be sleeping, I'll be awake under the sleepless stars, thinking of you."

"I expect nothing less."

Bathsheba draws off and tilts her head towards the windows where they both see the gangly figure of the boy quickly walking up towards the main entrance of the house. George the old dog lazily pads along behind him. Her arms stiffen by her sides as she sees the very reason for her bad mood materialise. "You have an ewe to watch over."

Gabriel drops his hands from her shoulders to her waist, causing her to turn back again. "I promised that at the very least, and I'll promise to you again every day over the next weeks. This'll be the last lambing I'll be away from you."

She reaches a hand up morosely, fingertip lighting brushing across his cheek. Bathsheba was not the sort of woman to wear her heart on her sleeve. Yet everyone could see where she had placed it after the addition of the fine gold ring on her finger. Those slow embers that had never fully died out from Gabriel's attention all those years ago had been given a second chance to flare up once more. She had carefully, slowly, come to lay some trust in the belief that her loneliness had been supplanted by love, although some trepidation remained having suffered the wounds of her recent past.

"Time once was you'd turn redder than a bushel of September apples at the very sight of me. I thought, for a time, that no one could ever love me the way you said you would. Could it be that my reason has taken flight like a summer swallow, and failed to return this spring-"

"Never."

He catches her hand from where it had drifted up toward his ear. It was true, he used to blush whenever meeting her, fumble his words when speaking with her. Right from the very first time he saw her, he thought her beautiful. That hadn't changed over the years. "I'd sooner go mad than to forget a fraction of you."

The sound of footsteps patter down the hallway beyond the door, threatening to intrude on them. Seemingly satisfied with his words, Bathsheba presses a final kiss to Gabriel's lips and then pushes him towards the door. "Good. Now go on with you. Before I change my mind about it all and consider selling the whole flock at market."

* * *

The following spring brings new promise as the crisp, fresh air grows warmer and coaxes new growth across the two farms. The farm awakens from its winter slumber and shakes off the frost, slowly at first as the farmhands begin to prepare for the new season, and then quicker as the animals become livelier in the earlier dawn light. Bright sunbursts of daffodils shoot up along the side paths, while further out towards the woods the bluebells would soon begin to unfurl themselves from their winter slumbers.

"This is a surprise."

Gabriel turns back to face her, before stepping forward to inspect the new greenhouse that stands proudly behind the main building on Little Weatherbury Farm. The metal frame glints in the sunlight, and inside the long wooden benches and empty frames await his attention. There is an untold number of possibilities that await them, and the genuine smile the breaks across his face would have warmed her from her head to her toes even if there was frosted ground crunching under her feet.

Bathsheba had been citing winter repairs and spending more time at Boldwood's estate, complaining that windows were letting in drafts or that fences needed repairing, and her husband had his hands full with her sheep stricken by the cold. He hadn't minded at all when she said that the farm hands needed extra help that only she could expedite.

And he had believed her.

It had made the surprise sweeter, and as she led him down the daffodil lined path towards the back of the house to inspect his new project, Gabriel's astonishment was a reward in itself.

"I'm glad you think so."

He turns his grin back to her, "Jams and the like?"

Those were words he'd once offered up to her, and it feels only like yesterday when they were standing in the field beyond her aunt's home and he was suggesting her a likeness of the world she now lived in; one her youthful self wouldn't understand fully or appreciate until enough time had passed.

"I never doubted it." Bathsheba says, taking his hand in hers and pulling him along to see the inside of the greenhouse.

They spent the afternoon with a picnic basket full of fresh bread and cheese up on a hill overlooking the wheat fields. By the time the sun begins to dip below the horizon, they have talked about nearly everything under the sun, including their newly made plans for the greenhouse. Gabriel had discussed at length all the different fruits that could be grown, and then his thoughts wandered off to the topic of flowers that could be sustained with the added protection of the glass and heat. Bathsheba leaned against the tree trunk as she listened to him, enjoying the colours of the sunset washing together and painting the sky a rich, orange-pink incomparable to any prizewinning rose.

She turns back to him, a little confused when he trails off, leaving them in silence. "What is it?"

"Nothing, just liking sitting here." His eyes creased up as he smiles a broad smile at her, and she adds that mental composition to her collection of memories that have only grown. "What are you thinking?"

"You'll think me silly." She bats his question away easily and breathes in the cooler air. When he waits for her patiently, she sighs and replies, "Sometimes I wonder if there is enough room in my heart for all of this. That one day, things will fill up to the brim and overflow…See, I did say."

"With you, I've found that it's a kind of love that grows." He tells her, his smile fading slowly but no less as brilliant as the setting set.

Bathsheba finds herself thinking on it occasionally as the months pass until it becomes a truth she understands just as well as knowing that the sun rises in the east, or the tides roll in twice a day, or that against all the odds she would love Gabriel for the rest of her life.

* * *

A/N: I ended up with a different writing style for this than I usually do, so if you made it to the end and liked it, please comment and let me know.


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